Career Positioning

Career Positioning (Mehdi's job search)

Crafting Mehdi's executive positioning for his Director/VP Product search. The target profile lives in ~/jobhunt/cible.md — read it first, never re-ask what's already there. Locked headline/About/CV text lives in references/approved-positioning.md.

When to Use

• Editing Mehdi's LinkedIn (headline, About, Experience dates/skills).
• Aligning or drafting his CV or folio.
• Any job-search positioning or career-narrative work for Mehdi.

Workflow (order matters)

1. Clarify the target first (energy/motivation → company type → domain → role → compensation). Done for Mehdi — see ~/jobhunt/cible.md. Don't draft copy before the target is locked.
2. Then position, in this order: headline → About → CV → folio.
3. Iterate, don't hand one answer. Mehdi co-creates in small passes. Give 2–4 concrete options per decision, state your pick, let him steer. 2–3 sharp questions at a time, never a wall.

Validated positioning

• Title: "VP / Product Leader" — NOT "Director of Product" (undersells his target). He's open to Director/Head of Product as roles, but the headline leads VP/Product Leader.
• Three tags he validated: "Human-first" · "AI Product Strategy" · "Angel investor".
  • "AI Product Strategy" beat "AI-native", "AI-driven", and "AI Builder" (those read techy/IC; "Builder" undermines the leader signal — flag if he floats it again).
  • "Human-first" is his signature differentiator — keep it prominent.
• PayFit framed as IMPACT, not affiliation: "helped scale PayFit into a $2.1B unicorn (employee ~#100)", not "ex-PayFit" or "7 years at PayFit". He rejected "ex-PayFit" in the headline.
• Management/people is a first-class VP signal. "Coach first, manager second" is his leadership identity — frame coaching as a strength (SVPG-style), not softness. Facts: 10+ direct reports; promoted 3 PMs junior→senior, a Senior PM→Group PM, a designer→Design Director; heavy hiring as PayFit scaled from ~100 people.
• Skills list restructure (VP-first): lead with "Product Strategy" (vision/trajectory/roadmap/positioning — distinct from "AI Product Strategy"), then Leadership & coaching, then AI Product Strategy, then ONE "Product craft" line (discovery/prioritization/delivery/design). Four separate IC craft skills read "PM", not "VP".

Style rules (anti-slop — applies to his OWN profile)

• No "passionate about building products that matter" or any generic LinkedIn-speak.
• No clever/performative hooks (he rejected "…and I can show the numbers").
• No filler ("most of it at PayFit" — "ça sert à rien").
• NO em-dashes (—). He dislikes them ("je n'aime pas quand il y a des dash"). Use periods, commas, or "·" instead — everywhere: LinkedIn, CV, site copy. (Avoid en-dashes in date ranges too; use hyphens.)
• Don't box him in: avoid the "PayFit guy" framing AND avoid committing statements ("It's the problem I want to work on" locks him to one topic; his positioning is open/mission-first).
• About section = positioning + narrative + thinking, not a re-list of achievements (redundant with the Experience section). Use a condensed "Track record:" block (Sylvain/CPO-PayFit style) for greatest hits instead.
• Emojis: 1–2 max, only on warm/personal parts (restaurants, shop), never on AI/tech. He ended up dropping them — if in doubt, omit.
• Write his copy in English (profile is English); converse with him in French.

Numbers (verify, never invent — sepia rule)

• 12+ years in B2B SaaS (NOT 10 — he's ~12y8m: Synthesio Mar 2013 → PayFit Nov 2025).
• PayFit: $2.1B unicorn (NOT $2.2B), ~$496M raised, employee ~#100, ARR under $10M → $80M (he prefers NOT to print the $80M — lead with "to profitability"), 5,000 → 20,000+ customers.
• Signature wins: HR+ plan 0 → €15M+ ARR / 3,000+ customers; salary-payments feature >€1B processed; PLG ~30% of new acquisitions.
• Synthesio: dashboards redesign → -20% churn (Experience only, NOT the track record — dilutes the scale story).
• Verify public company figures via web before writing; Mehdi's friend-provided numbers had errors ($2.2B vs actual $2.1B).

Decisions already made (don't relitigate unless asked)

• Primo is OUT of LinkedIn + CV (20-person co that stalled on a human problem; "Founding PM" = downgrade from Product Director). Interview talking point only.
• PayFit end date shown as "Jan 2026" (he extended from Nov 2025 to shorten the gap; his call — reference-check risk flagged once, don't re-flag).
• Investor/Upscalers: in About ("angel investor at Upscalers"), not in CV body.
• Removed "Claude code" from LinkedIn top skills (dev-flavored, wrong signal for a VP).

Personal site / folio (mehdisoliman.me)

Single self-contained index.html at ~/jobhunt/site/ (Space Grotesk + JetBrains Mono, no framework). Static deploy: Netlify + GoDaddy DNS. Full build recipe in references/personal-site.md.

• Design taste (validated): "épuré, light, petite touche sympathique" = clean/light + one memorable accent. Monochrome, NOT blue (he disliked the blue). Accent = warm orange #e8551f. Cards (rounded, subtle border), not full-width rows. Bold ONLY key metrics — if everything's bold nothing pops.
• Structure: // vp · product leader → name (orange dot) → rotating tagline → photo (hero right) → 01 About → 02 Talks & writing (cards w/ thumbnails) → 03 Links (cards w/ orange icons).
• Rotating tagline (crossfade 4.5s, NOT typewriter): 5 phrases, one word hand-underlined per phrase, underline REDRAWN each time, phrase-first-then-underline (700ms). Phrases: "I build products that feel human." / "I turn 0-to-1 ideas into €15M+ ARR." / "I think about users becoming agents." / "I coach product people into leaders." / "Reality is what's shipped."
• Photo: warm/color (NOT B&W), centered crop.
• Pending: Twitter + GitHub handles (cards are placeholder #); talk-2 link/image; favicon + OG tags.

Pitfalls

• LinkedIn goes stale fast: before drafting, check headline (still "@PayFit"?), "Present" dates, and odd top skills.
• Two CVs exist — one has Primo, one doesn't. The no-Primo one is the base.
• His memory/profile says "Synthesion" but the company is "Synthesio" (acquired by Ipsos).

Files

• ~/jobhunt/cible.md — full target profile + 6-step plan.
• ~/jobhunt/cv.md — approved aligned CV (markdown).
• references/approved-positioning.md — locked headline, About, CV summary.
• scripts/push_cv_to_drive.py — copies the "CV" Google Doc and replaces its content with ~/jobhunt/cv.md (Drive files.copy + Docs batchUpdate).